ELVIS PRESLEY's First Interview Location! (1954) | A Pivotal Stop Near Sun Studio

Elvis Presley's first photo as a professional singer was taken on 27 July 1954 at the offices of Memphis Press Scimitar newspaper.
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Great info online for Elvis at elvis.com.au and elvisinfonet.com and great magazine Elvis-The Man & His Music.
This is Union and Marshall where Memphis Recording Service is. I'm going to go down for another location I've never stopped at on previous trips to Memphis, just to tell another just to visit the location of something else that played a small part in the life of Elvis.
And it's literally, from here, a couple of hundred yards down Union on the left there.
So, July '54 was a phenomenal month for the young Elvis Presley, especially on Mondays it seemed.
Monday 5 July Elvis recorded 'That's All Right Mama', what was to be Elvis first single. The following Monday 12 July Elvis signed his first management contract making Scotty Moore his manager, the guitarist Scotty Moore.
The following Monday the 19th Elvis's first single was released - 'That's All Right' backed with 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' on the Sun label, SUN209.
26 July, Elvis signed a contract with Sun Records.
Tuesday 27 July, Elvis reported to the Memphis Recording Service studios where he met Marion Keisker, where they had an appointment with the Memphis Press-Scimitar, which would be Elvis's first first interview, first article in a newspaper as a professional singer.
where the Commercial and the Memphis Press-Scimitar newspapers were printed.
This is the Commercial Appeal building. this is a different building to the one Elvis would have come in and back in 1954 both Memphis newspapers, the Commercial and the afternoon daily the Memphis Press-Scimitar were printed from out of a building that stood here.
And it was the Memphis Press-Scimitar that Elvis's first interview was to be with on that afternoon, or lunchtime of Tuesday 27 July 1954.
The railway actually, you can see the rail lines actually went through there because when the old newspaper building was still here the trains actually pulled directly into the building with the newsreels.
And the building that Elvis entered for that interview on that day, came out onto the road here. It was a five-story building, the actual offices of the newspapers.They came out lengthwise onto the edge of the road here, and it was actually up on the fifth floor that Elvis and Marion Keisker sat for their interview and Elvis then went downstairs and was photographed. It's not the coolest photo ever of Elvis who is sitting there in a dickie-bow tie but still that was Elvis's first posed photograph of a professional singer named Elvis Presley and that took place here. 'In a spin - Elvis Presley can be forgiven for going round and round in more ways than one these days. The 19-year-old Humes High graduate he has just signed a recording contract with Sun Record company of Memphis and already has a disc out that promises to be the biggest hit that Sun has ever pressed.' So it goes on to give a little overview of his very brief career up to that point and it carries on 'Just now reaching dealers shelves, the record is getting an amazing number of plays on all Memphis radio stations. "The odd thing about it" says Marion Keisker of the Sun office "is that both sides seem to be equally popular on popular, folk and race record programs. This boy has something that seems to appeal to everybody. We've just gotten the sample records out to the disc jockeys and distributors in other cities" she said
"But we've got big orders yesterday from Dallas and Atlanta. Sun, started by Sam Phillips former WREC engineer several years ago, has 40 distributors from coast to coast, so there's a good chance of a big national sale. Elvis, son of Mr and Mrs Vernon Presley, 462 Alabama, is a truck driver for Crown Electric Company. Elvis has been singing and playing the guitar since he was about 13, just picked it up himself. The home folks who have been hearing him on record so often during the past few weeks can see Elvis in person when he's presented by disc jockey Bob Neal in a hillbilly show at Overton Park Shell Friday night, along with veteran entertainers from the Louisiana Hayride.' So Elvis's first interview seems to be more an interview with Marion Keisker than Elvis. It appears he didn't actually contribute anything to the interview apart from going downstairs in the building and having his photo taken. So as I said there, following his first interview as a professional singer on the Tuesday, on Friday he would make his first professional appearance as a professional singer at the Overton Park Shell for the Jamboree.
So that rounded off a very eventful July 1954 for Elvis Presley.